Zechariah 11

¹ Open your doors, O Lebanon,
that fire may devour your cedars!

² Wail, O cypress, for the cedar has fallen,
for the glorious trees are ruined!
Wail, oaks of Bashan,
for the thick forest has been felled!

³ The sound of the wailing of the shepherds,
for their glory is ruined!
The sound of the roaring of the young lions,
for the thicket of the Jordan is ruined!

⁴ Thus said the LORD my God: "Shepherd the flock doomed to slaughter.

⁵ Those who buy them slaughter them and go unpunished, and those who sell them say, 'Blessed be the LORD, I have become rich!' And their own shepherds have no pity on them.

⁶ For I will no longer have pity on the inhabitants of this land," declares the LORD. "Behold, I will cause each of them to fall into the hand of his neighbor and each into the hand of his king, and they will crush the land, and I will deliver no one from their hand."

⁷ So I became the shepherd of the flock doomed to slaughter — the afflicted of the flock. I took two staffs: one I called Favor, and the other I called Union. And I tended the flock.

⁸ In one month I destroyed the three shepherds. But I became impatient with them, and they also detested me.

⁹ So I said, "I will not be your shepherd. What is to die, let it die. What is to be destroyed, let it be destroyed. And let those who are left devour one another's flesh."

¹⁰ And I took my staff Favor, and I broke it, annulling the covenant that I had made with all the peoples.

¹¹ So it was annulled on that day, and the afflicted of the flock who were watching me knew that it was the word of the LORD.

¹² Then I said to them, "If it seems good to you, give me my wages; but if not, keep them." And they weighed out as my wages thirty pieces of silver.

¹³ Then the LORD said to me, "Throw it to the potter" — the lordly price at which I was priced by them. So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them into the house of the LORD, to the potter.

¹⁴ Then I broke my second staff Union, annulling the brotherhood between Judah and Israel.

¹⁵ Then the LORD said to me, "Take once more the equipment of a foolish shepherd.

¹⁶ For behold, I am raising up in the land a shepherd who does not care for those being destroyed, or seek the young, or heal the maimed, or nourish the healthy, but devours the flesh of the fat ones, tearing off even their hoofs.

¹⁷ Woe to my worthless shepherd,
who deserts the flock!
May the sword strike his arm
and his right eye!
Let his arm be wholly withered,
his right eye utterly blinded!